This site invites you to expand your scholarly possibilities by inviting the whole body into the process.

Author: Luann

Luann Fortune, PhD, LMT, NCBTMB, MA is a teacher, scholar, and wellness advocate. She holds a post at Saybrook’s College of Integrative Medicine and Health Sciences where she serves as the Director of Instructional Excellence and oversees the Healthcare Systems and Practice specializations. Luann has an extensive management background in the private sector, owned and operated a private practice delivering business and program consultation, and continues to deliver workshops and wellness services to businesses and the community. Dr. Fortune’s research focuses on the holistic aspects of integrative wellness practices, as well as somatic awareness and embodiment techniques for scholarship, research, and practice. Her writings and publications span multiple disciplines, and promote translational value in scholarship and practice. Luann approaches holistic wellness individually from a body-based portal: she is also licensed massage therapist and also teaches research literacy to massage therapists.

Bentz, V. M. & Giorgino, V. (2016) Contemplative social research. Santa Barbara, CA: Fielding Press. Newly released, this edited scholarly work includes chapters on infusing research and scholarship with embodied, including Luann Fortune’s chapter, Retracing the Labyrinth, which describes her application of actual labyrinth walking to support indepth analysis in phenomenological research. To view an… Read More Now Available: Contemplative Social Research

Contemplative Social Research, edited by Valerie Bentz and Vincenzo Giorgino (University of Turin), brings together 11 chapters from scholars around the world on theories of self, mind, culture, and society. The University of Lodz, the University of Basque Country, the Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona as well as Drexel, Claremont, Saybrook University, and U. of Pennsylvania… Read More Soon to be Released: Contemplative Social Research

This recording of a body scan exercise was a research tool for the self-study on use of body-scan technique for somatic awareness (Fortune, 2011). Fortune, L. D. (2011). Essences of somatic awareness as captured in a verbally directed body scan: A phenomenological case study. In R. L. Lanigan (Ed.), Schutzian Research: A Yearbook of Worldly… Read More

Today I was fortunate to participate in a Labyrinth Workshop conducted by Turning Point Consultants (see http://www.Turningpointconsultants.com). This group has introduced a wide range of populations to labyrinth as a tool for completive practice and healing. Setting aside the profound personal experience I enjoyed, it reminded me of the power of labyrinth walking as a discernment… Read More Embodied Research Techniques

One of my student colleagues and I recently embarked on a conversation about educating children for improved somatic awareness. I think this is a topic ripe for attention. I have long been an advocate of teaching young children somatic awareness and experiential anatomy (Olsen, 1998). While the Mindfulness movement has taken off for kids, I… Read More Discussions on somatic education

by Luann Drolc Fortune, PhD Stage of Change theory (Prochaska et al., 1994) provides a frame for incorporating embodiment perspectives and somatic techniques into the research process. It assumes five stages: (a) precontemplation: what about this situation is calling to my scholarship; (b) contemplation: how is this question relevant; (c) preparation: how do I design… Read More The Embodied Researcher: Stages of Change in the Research Process

This panel on recent research and scholarship was presented at the 2015 Annual Meeting of THE SOCIETY FOR PHENOMENOLOGY AND THE HUMAN SCIENCES (SPSH) in Atlanta on October 8, 2015. The purpose of this panel was to share a conceptual model and experiential methods for incorporating embodiment into scholarship and research. Phenomenological literature abounds with references for… Read More Embodied Research: A Scholarly Panel